134 COOPERATIVE MARKETING 



At present the exchange system is composed as follows : 

 Some 8,000 growers are imited into 117 local packing ex- 

 changes; these are grouped into seventeen district selling 

 exchanges; the seventeen district exchanges are integrated 

 in the California Fruit Growers Exchange. It follows that 

 the average association is composed of about sixty-five 

 growers and that six or seven associations form the average 

 district exchange. There are, also, in the exchange system, 

 fourteen special contract shippers. These shippers are 

 merely packing associations which have no convenient ac- 

 cess to any district exchange, and they have no voice in 

 the management of the central exchange. The only way 

 these shippers could affect the exchange policy would be 

 by withdrawal. On the other hand, each district exchange 

 can affect the policy of the California Fruit Growers Ex- 

 change in proportion to the quantity of fruit that it sells 

 through the Exchange. That is, a director on the central 

 exchange who represented a district exchange which fur- 

 nished 10 per cent, of the total Exchange shipments would 

 not have voting power of one-seventeenth but of one-tenth 

 of the total voting power. 



What functions the California Fruit Growers Exchange 

 was created to perform and the methods it is expected to 

 employ will best appear from quotations from the contract 

 between the central exchange and the seventeen component 

 district exchanges: 



It has been deemed necessary by the parties of the second 

 part [the district exchanges] to associate themselves to- 

 gether, and cooperate in the matter of developing the citrus 

 industry and marketing its products for the following named 

 Principal Purposes and Objects. 



To lessen the cost of marketing by creating Agencies who 

 will act for each member. 



To insure the collection of sales. 



To facilitate the collection of damage claims. 



